Frederick W. Axelgard is a Senior Fellow in International Relations at the Wheatley Institution. Prior to joining the Wheatley Institution in 2013, he had an extensive career in public policy and international business centered in Washington DC.

From 2002-2012, Axelgard worked for General Dynamics, where he was Director of international business development at corporate headquarters and later Vice President of Middle East business development at Axsys Technologies, a division of General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems. His public policy experience has focused on the politics and security of the Middle East. From 1989-2002, he served in the U.S. Department of State in a variety of capacities. He worked for several years on the Arab-Israeli peace process as coordinator of the multilateral working group on arms control and regional security, after which he served as Counselor for Political-Military Affairs at the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia. Following the terror attacks of September 2001, he was seconded to the U.S. Central Command as State Department liaison during Operation Enduring Freedom, for which he received the Department’s Superior Merit Award.

Prior to serving in the Department of State, Axelgard worked for US Senator E. Jake Garn of Utah (1980-81). At the Center for Strategic and International Studies (1982-89) he was a Senior Fellow in Middle East Studies and he wrote extensively on Iraqi politics and US-Iraq relations. His writings have appeared in Current History, BYU Studies, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, and Atlanta Constitution-Journal, and include the monograph “A New Iraq? The Gulf War and Implications for U.S. Policy” (1988).

Axelgard graduated summa cum laude from Brigham Young University and holds an MA in law and diplomacy and PhD in international studies from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He and his wife Robyn have five children and nine grandchildren.